Lyons: At Ringling Museum, a celebration of breasts

Having watched teachers bring kids to the Ringling Museum of Art, I know they work — sometimes without much success — at getting them not to giggle at all the depictions of exposed human anatomy.

We sophisticated adult male museum-goers have learned to be more discrete, in the hope that maintaining studious expressions will disguise the way we still spend most of our museum time gazing at images of nude and semi-nude women.

That's how our brains work. And at the Ringling, when a guy pulls his eyes from one lovingly, masterfully depicted, oh so delicately exposed female breast, he has a fair chance of encountering two more in the painting directly across the room.

So I chuckled when I got a complaint from a woman who asked that I not use her name because, since she has a connection to the museum, she does not want to be ostracized or picked on for making the gripe.

She is unhappy with the museum's new nod to Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“Depicting Dècolletage: The Pink Ribbon Tour,” is really just a pamphlet that you can grab in the lobby, to assist a self-guided walk through the museum. But as the title may suggest to those who know a little French, the aim is to help art oglers cruise right past all the boring stuff and go directly to works that feature breasts.

Not that the pamphlet advertises “Totally Naked Nipples!” or seems at all trashy. But it is delightfully honest. As part of the effort to promote public support for breast cancer prevention and treatment, the idea is to tastefully acknowledge that breasts are beautiful and have been for a long, long time.

“Throughout history, artists have offered us many different depictions of breasts: nurturing breasts, seductive breasts, demure breasts and even breasts bared in rebellion,” the pamphlet says. The tour will help you “discover the significance of the breast throughout the centuries.”

Sounded good to me, and I enjoyed that tour, aside from the fact that I was on deadline and, alas, could rarely linger in front of my favorites.

But the critic I mentioned sees the tour in a different light.

“So, the museum is promoting a self-guided boobs tour (until some parent complains?)” she wrote. “I find the 'tour' concept offensive to women and the whole idea astoundingly misguided.”

She said she had talked to some female volunteers and staff on duty with the same reaction.

Could be. But Maureen Zaremba, the museum's education director and the primary person responsible for the tour, says she has heard only the opposite, especially from women.

“I have had people hug us and kiss us,” Zaremba said.

Having lost a close friend and a relative to breast cancer makes her see the topic in a serious light, she said, but part of that is appreciating the beauty of breasts and not letting them be something not talked about.

In a museum where so many art works were made by creators who clearly appreciated that beauty, she said there should be no need to act as if the beautiful breasts depicted need to go unmentioned.

I'm with her. And I liked the curator notes in the pamphlet, and learned a few things from them.

One 400-year-old painting by Sisto Badalocchio depicts a Bible scene in which two dastardly older men are trying to pressure virtuous Susannah into sex, on threat of her being stoned to death if she refuses. The notes point out that Susannah's breast is exposed as she tries to cover herself, something I had already noticed on my own. The surprisingly honest conclusion said that because Susannah “was a religious role model,” she “provided artists with an honorable pretext for titillating pictures.”

Pun intended, or not, that is right on the money. Artists, including many of the greatest and biggest names in art history, appreciate bodies. And it is silly to think the only proper and tasteful way to appreciate such paintings requires total downplaying some of the features that attract the eye most.

Some people will say I'd have a different reaction if the tour was connected to preventing testicular cancer, and the museum did an Equipage Tour.

Well, yeah, I'd tend to skip that pamphlet. But so what?

There are works at the Ringling for everyone. I think I even saw some in which everyone had their clothes on, so someone must like those, too.